To the Editor:

Wachusett Regional School District Superintendent Pandiscio, by means of his latest proposed raid on cash-strapped district taxpayers, puts a contemporary face on Mark Twain’s ageless observation: “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” In making his patently misleading and asinine combined $1 million spending request for district-wide wireless installation, iPad purchases, and iPad leases, Mr. Pandiscio (I, like the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, reserve the honorific “Dr.” for physicians only), made the absurd statement that the WRSD has “given more than the towns through this economic crisis,” further asserting disingenuously that “this has put us in a tenuous situation” in which the district is “one bad decision,” or $200,000, from insolvency. He cited the fact that district towns, on the other hand, have budgetary reserves of between 4 and 13%. He said these things despite the fact that between Fiscal Years 2007 and 2011, when even Democrat business magnate and publisher Mortimer Zuckerman says that the REAL unemployment rate has reached 20%, WRSD spending increased $8.5 million, from $65,124,083 to $73,605,420.

Mr. Pandiscio well knows that “the towns” give nothing in this process. All town and WRSD operating funds are extracted from hard-working taxpayers. As we all know, for years district towns have been forced to cut, scrimp, and save in response to the WRSD’s ever-burgeoning budget requests so that they can stay within Proposition 2 ½ spending limits. If district towns have reserve funds, particularly for emergencies and unexpected large capital purchases, it is because, unlike Mr. Pandiscio and the WRSD Committee, they have been fiscally prudent and have not habitually rolled over and played dead in response to union wage and benefit demands.

As for $200,000 “bad decisions,” Mr. Pandiscio and the WRSD Committee have been implementing them, at a minimum, each year by padding the administrative payroll. For examples, in response to my public record demands, the WRSD 2008 fiscal year reported collective administrative payroll was $3,735,654.43, or an $86,875.68 average for each of the 50 administrators then listed. The very next year, in depths of the current great recession, the WRSD collective administrative payroll ballooned to $4,526,597.03, for an average $90,531.94 per administrator. That year Mr. Pandiscio raised himself from $166,500 to $181,750.  And thus it has gone, year after year. Last year the administrative payroll was padded yet again, with Mr. Pandiscio’s kiss-in-the-mail rising to $187,202.50.  One of the SIX (yes, that’s 6) listed Assistant
Letter to the Editor, Cont.


Principals at the High School, Catherine Knowles, saw her pay jump from $83,903.72 to $101,218.17—chump change for the WRSD Committee chumps and the chump voters who reflexively re-elect them.
    

It’s time to just say “NO” to Mr. Pandiscio’s latest boondoggle, including “NO” to schoolkids downloading porn to taxpayer-supplied iPads. Let them use monitored existing school computer rooms and terminals. If parents think iPads are good for their kids, then by all means let them cough up their own cash to pay for them.

                                                                                                         Respectfully,


                                                                                                     James F. Gettens